Wednesday, June 17, 2015

BOOK REVIEW: Bruce Barcott, Weed the People (2015)

I have spent more than two years on this blog lobbying for people
to see cannabis as a plant instead of
a drug. That’s why I was delirious with joy when I read the following
realization that journalist Bruce Barcott had during a talk with a grower for
his recent book Weed the People:

“I tuned him out because at that
moment it occurred to me I had never been in the presence of a live marijuana
plant. What an odd thing. I’d been living for nearly half a century in a nation
obsessed with marijuana … and had never, ever come face to face with the actual
living plant itself. That struck me as completely insane. Because you know
what? It’s not a nuclear warhead. It’s
not a deadly virus. It’s a plant.” (p. 106-7)

Thank you, sir!

Anyone who doesn’t
know how to feel about the rising tide of cannabis legalization in the United
States should read Barcott’s book, because he is right there with you. Or
rather, he was, before he finished Weed
the People. As Barcott points out, weed in America is a lot like gay
marriage in America; the younger generations consider the legalization of both
common sense, but it has taken the older generations a few more years to
recover from their indoctrinated stupor and let exposure and experience guide
them into the light.

Through his well-balanced, thoroughly researched, and highly
compelling book, Barcott offers just such a re-education. His success rests
partly on the fact that while researching Weed
the People, Barcott underwent the same re-education, the same dissolution of his preconceptions against cannabis and those
who use it, that many of his readers are likely to experience.

But make no mistake, Weed
the People is no narcissistic trot through its author’s epiphany; rather, the
brilliance of the book lies in Barcott’s ability to bring his own thoughts,
reflections, and prejudices into honest dialogue with the reality he finds in
the field.

And—this is shocking for a pot book written by a journalist—there
is plenty of reality in Weed the People. Itis an outstanding work of journalism that covers nearly all the
current issues in a refreshingly responsible and un-sensationalist way: The
“weed is great” crowd will love the first 12 chapters, in which Barcott details
the medical utility of the plant, his own experience getting a medical card and
making his first sweaty, anxiety-ridden legal weed purchase, and all the unjust
evils that have befallen the plant and its champions over the ages. But that
same crowd will undoubtedly wince at chapters 13-16, in which he puts the “100-percent safe” myth
directly to bed by examining the very real and very concerning evidence
surrounding cannabis’s effects on young minds and the mentally ill.

But Barcott is no prohibitionist. At one point he has dinner
with Kevin Sabet, the leader of Smart Approaches to Marijuana (pp. 168-71). SAM
is perhaps the nation’s largest anti-pot group, pushing for a complete rollback
of legalization in states where it has occurred. Barcott hears Sabet out over
some pork shoulder and tries to point out the flaws in Sabet’s claim that,
since nobody is getting arrested for joints anymore, legalization doesn’t need
to happen (the main flaw is that thousands
of people—a disproportionate amount of them black—still do get arrested for possession,with real consequences for their loved ones and life chances).

When he realizes that Sabet wants to hear none of this,
Barcott does the right thing, if not the “objective” thing—he tosses Sabet and
his ideas right into the dustbin of cannabis ideology. No more print space for
you, Kevin. Barcott wastes little time with prohibitionists in his book. As he
should—they are truly a dying breed, and it’s time more journalists stopped
giving their arguments print space and airtime.

The book clocks in a bit long at 317 pages, and there are
too many chapters (30). But I found myself
so engrossed in Barcott’s straightforward and oft-hilarious writing that I
hardly noticed how many of those chapters I was blazing through. Barcott also
does something that more journalists need to start doing—he balances concern
for the negative effects of cannabis with facts and figures on alcohol and
other drugs, arguing that “we need to
consider marijuana within the context of other inebriating substances and their
effects on society” (p. 241).

Nevertheless, Weed the
People is a journalistic triumph, one that will likely convince many people
still on the fence about pot legalization that OK, yes, he’s right, we need to
be more rational and regulate this stuff. In that, Bruce Barcott has done a favor for not only himself but also for the majority of level-headed Americans who are sick and tired of mainstream lies and failed drug policies. The legalization movement owes him a "thank you."